


What Makes a Demon

by BannedBookReader



Category: Aquaman (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Blood, hurts you with cannon, prejudices, warfare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-03
Updated: 2016-06-03
Packaged: 2018-07-12 01:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7079530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BannedBookReader/pseuds/BannedBookReader
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yellow hair is the mark of a demon in Atlantis. Because of this Kaldur was harassed most of his childhood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Makes a Demon

The first time Kaldur was called a demon he was nine. He and his stepfather, Calvin, had swum into the city to get their hunt cleaned and possibly sell a portion. They had been particularly successful at netting the fish and their catch was larger than usual which put both in good spirits. Which is perhaps why it took a minute for him to process the rock that had collided with his face. He floated there stunned as a small stream of blood clouded from his check. It wasn't particularly painful but it did sting . Calvin however took no time in finding the culprit, a young boy about Kaldur’s age, who was hiding behind his mother. 

“You apologize!” 

Kaldur was shocked, Calvin almost never raised his voice and never in public. 

“For what?!” The boy stayed firmly behind his mother who looked more upset at Kaldur than her rock throwing son. 

“For what?! For tossing a rock at my son! Apologize or I'll-”

“You’ll what?” The mother stepped in, eyeing Kaldur’s yellow hair and making the poor boy’s stomach drop. He moved closer to his father. 

“I'll go to the Royal Guard!”

The women let out a cruel laugh. “Like they'd do anything. If you were smart you'd have left that demon of yours on Mercy Rock when he was born.” 

Before Calvin could react Kaldur began desperately pulling on his hand. He was confused, scared, and wanted away. It only took one look to see Kaldur was verge of tears and Calvin disengaged. 

They carried on in silence for a while before Kaldur had enough. 

“Father. Aren't you going to explain?”

Calvin turned and stared at the small boy, his heart felt tight. After a moment he let out a sigh. “People are ignorant and superstitious Kaldur. It's nothing.”

“He threw a rock at me.” 

Another sigh. “That he did.” Calvin ran a large hand over his face before continuing. “Kaldur you have to understand,” He dropped down and placed both hands on Kaldur’s shoulders. “Legends are very powerful all through Atlantis. And...some people believe that sharing a trait with someone or something means you are that thing or like it…”

“Father I don't understand.”

“Long ago there was a demon named Kordax he waged a war between Poseidonis and Tritonis-”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“He was yellow haired Kaldur.”

The little boy blinked, clearly not understanding. “So?” 

“So, some ,wrongfully, believe yellow hair is the mark of a demon.”

“But mother has yellow hair! And the king!”

“Your mother had a difficult life, my son. And the king was left on Mercy Rock as a newborn to die.” 

“And that's what that woman said you should have done to me?!” The words came out strangled, choked by Kaldur’s attempts to hold back sobs. Calvin shook his head, pulling his son into a tight hug. 

When the two had returned home and told Sha'lain'a, Kaldur’s mother, she pressed her lips into a tight line. She didn't say anything and rubbed Kaldur’s sore cheek, her eyes hard. Kaldur had never seen his mother like that before and it scared him. None of them spoke much the rest of the night and when his parents thought he was asleep Sha'lain'a let out a silent, furious scream. 

“I knew this would happen Calvin. I just--”

“--My love. There is nothing we can do but comfort him.”

“Comfort has never made me feel better, especially as a child.”

“I know. But what else is there to do?”

Kaldur pretended he was actually asleep and didn't hear them through the thin walls. His head felt tight. His mother had never spoken much about her childhood, and often preferred to avoid the city whenever possible. Kaldur never really understood it but now it made more sense, if this how she was treated. 

But she said she knew this would happen. If she knew then why not warn him. It wasn’t fair. He could have anticipated it , he wouldn’t have understood, but he could have anticipated. And if he truly was marked as a demon why would she call him her “beautiful boy”. Demons weren’t beautiful. And then he felt guilty, because his mother was beautiful. All of this was too much for him. He cried himself to sleep that night.  
\---

By the time Kaldur was twelve and joined the military he had been attacked, physically and verbally, several other times. None hurt quite as bad as that first time though. It wasn’t until his second year of service that he discovered how much his fellow soldiers despised him. 

He was thirteen at the time. Poseidonis had been attacked by a group of nomads and his battalion was closest to attack. It was technically his first battle and for a moment before striking down his foe, he froze. It only took a moment for the nomad to run him through with a sword. 

Kaldur’s body froze, muscles seizing. He couldn’t feel anything, just stared down in horror at the blade protruding from his chest. Later he’d realize that he’d gone into shock. He was thankful that his body went immediately into shock and he couldn’t feel the incredible pain. The more of his blood that inked into the water the harder it was to breathe. He felt like a whale was sitting on his chest. Before long the water began to feel cold. 

He called out for help several times, but each time his “allies” would glance in his direction and swim away. Finally his screams broke down into sobs and just as he was about to accept his fate a lieutenant found him.

He spent months in a field hospital, surrounded by other wounded. The nurses were cold with him, and he received no visitors. After he had healed he was granted special permission to transfer to a different battalion where he was put on a support position until he had finished healing. His inability to strike down the foe only added to his problems. The few soldiers who didn’t hate him for his hair, now hated him for his “aiding the enemy”. The ones that already hated him used his inability as proof that he was evil and out to destroy Atlantis.  
\--

When he was fifteen he was accepted into the Conservatory of Sorcery based on his exemplary service and the potential for discipline and creativity he had shown as a squad leader. It was there that he finally made his first real friends in Garth and Tula. 

“Oh good a demon’s joining our class.” 

He didn’t know where it came from and opted to ignore it, what came next came was a legitimate surprise.

“Where? I don’t see one.” 

Kaldur spun around to see a red haired girl leaning over another student. Her hands were on her hips and eyes narrowed. It was clearly a threat. A young black haired boy was floating on the other side of the student, his arms crossed and chin up.

“With the yellow hair…”

“You mean like the king’s hair? I wonder what he thinks about that? I can ask.”

The student panicked and quickly swam away. Kaldur just stared at the strange pair completely dumbfounded. 

The Conservatory of Sorcery was a more accepting place than most of Atlantis, but prejudices still ran rampant. 

“So it really doesn't bother you.”It had been a week since the incident, a week of spending meals with Garth and Tula, a week of jokes and study and of the warm, pleasant feeling that rises up in Kaldur’s chest whenever the two are near. A week of friendship, and he still had difficulty believing that they weren't just messing with him.

“Our King is yellow haired and he's not a demon, or evil...though I suppose one could argue he's bad luck, but that's more personality than a curse.” Tula observed, lounging on a rock just outside of the Conservatory. 

Garth threw his arm around Kaldur’s shoulders, a grin playing on his lips. “Yeah. Just because there was once a demon with yellow hair, doesn't mean everyone with yellow hair is a demon.” 

If he had been a different person Kaldur would have wrapped both of the then strangers in his arms and never let go. 

As it turns out when you have friends willing to literally attack anyone who goes out their way to harass you, especially in a controlled area like the Conservatory, people are more likely to keep their opinions to themselves. That doesn't mean he didn’t get anonymous threats, and once Garth had found wards against demons painted on the door he shared with Kaldur, but they were much less frequent. 

On the surface things weren't so bad but he still experienced a slew of “dumb blonde” jokes and people constantly asking him if he dyed his hair himself. Once, when he was at New Years Party Roy had invited him to, a drunk Ollie exclaimed “Blondes have more fun!” before falling off the kitchen table. But no one called him a demon or considered him evil because of his hair. 

His skin and sexuality were another matter. 

Because he wasn't one to show a lot of PDA, unlike most Atlanteans, most strangers couldn’t tell he wasn't exactly straight. He did however experience some uncomfortable moments due to color of his skin. A particularly memorable,albeit a blurry one due to all parties involved being heavily intoxicated, featured; Kaldur accidentally bumping into someone at a club, said someone calling him a slur, and Roy punching the bigot in the mouth before Kaldur himself could (though he did land in a good kick before security pulled them apart). 

As he grew being called evil didn’t bother him as much as it had. He couldn’t be evil, not when he devoted himself to doing good, to saving people. A demon wouldn't sacrifice themselves for their team, or help strangers that hate them. However whenever he did something bad or morally gray he'd begin to worry. Even if it was something small, something as simple as a white lie to his team or snapping at an interfering bystander during a mission. The smallest thing had him watching himself, policing his behavior more closely. It was something that hung over him like a cloud.

When Dick had approached him about the secret mission, he felt his heart catch. He had difficulty thinking of anything as evil as working with the man who happily tortured a baby to death. And as the mission carried on and he saw the more human aspects of his biological father, Kaldur felt a panic slowly start to rise. 

Looking in the mirror after a particularly gruesome mission Kaldur felt like sobbing. Because his reflection showed the man who could have stopped the deaths of hundreds, maybe more, and did nothing. And while that might not make him a demon, it must have made him evil.

**Author's Note:**

> Special Thanks to my beta: Rockscanfly and my test readers: youngjusticeaddict, cheyennefreemont, thecityofthefireflys, and pastelczerny all on Tumblr. This would be shit without you ^-^


End file.
